Springy-shiny seeds

It’s a beautiful Spring-shiny day here on the Kapiti Coast. I’m celebrating with a lovely glass of chilled Brown Brother’s Dolcetto-Syrah (to ease the passage from winter reds to summer whites) and planting seeds. It’s just lovely. My nose is filled with berry bouquets and I still retain some dirt below my fingernails, making me feel all like earth goddess and urban-tech sophisticate at the same time. Lovely, I tell you.

So, I’ve scrabbled around and found a whole range of seed and thought it was about time to get some things on the go. Then I can take a serious look at my Kings Seeds catalogue and decide on a few other flavours for the garden.

To dampen my abilities to go overboard, I limit myself to 10 lots (read pots) of seeds at a time. This forces me into planting a diverse garden that doesn’t all come on at once. Since it is so mild here, I can get a really good growing season with a little patience.

NZ spinach is the only New Zealand native grown as a food crop. We tend to go through a lot of spinach so I’ve planted a fair bit of this and will do another couple of cultivars in the coming weeks. I’ve been meaning to find out about oxalic acid levels in spinach and if certain types contain less. If anyone has any clues please do let me know.

I’ve never managed to get my Italian precoce broccoli to head but I’m giving it another go. I just think they look all fractally-fantastic and look forward to them decorating the vege garden.

Zucchinis are horrifically expensive right now, given the season and all.  They are a spring necessity in our house though, so I’ve put a few Black Beauty seeds down and will follow them up with a few more in a few weeks. I’m also trying some of the lovely black spaghetti squash seeds a friend has given me as I’m very curious about them. I’ll let you know how they go.

Capsicums are one of my favourite things to eat and grow, so I’ve started quite a few seeds of the Como Red and Yellow and a Bell Peppers colour mix with more varieties to follow. I’ve planted a couple of left over Microtom tomatoes as well just because they were there. They are old seed and haven’t been too productive for me but they’re cute and I can.

I’m looking forward to a hot and spicy summer so I’ve got a selection of chillis going. Thai Hot has been a huge success for me in pots. My mum has one I gave her that has been producing beautiful hot red chillis for the last 5 years. I’ve put down a fair amount of Red hot claw too as I make a lot of harissa to give to friends. Again, I’ll be trialling new ones later on.

I have two white sage plants that have made it through the winter so I’m planting quite a bit more for a protective plant in the garden. If these do well, I’ll make up some smudge sticks at the end of the season.
So I’ve got some good staples down for the vege patch plus a good dose of flavour. I’ve also added something that is nice to have that will bring other great properties to the garden. In 2 weeks I’ll plant some more seeds keeping the variety going – broccoli, cabbage, onions, mesclun, peas. In 4 weeks I’ll transplant the babies from today. By spreading all this out, I not only get a longer growing season and more diversity, but I keep the momentum going. Breaking things into chunks like this keeps things easy to manage. I need this kind of chunking to manage my-sized garden. And I especially need to chunk with my aspirations to take over the world.